THE FIVE SCIENCES: ARCHITECTURE, PAINTING, POETRY, MUSIC, AND
ASTRONOMY.
{21}This is a small exhibition of pictures. These pictures are placed
here to shew the partiality of the present times. Formerly seven cities
contended for the honour of having Homer for their countryman; but as
soon as it was known these sciences were born in England, the whole club
of Connoiseurs exclaimed against them, saying, it was impossible that
there could be any real genius among them, our atmosphere being too
thick and too heavy to nourish any fine ideas. These sciences, being
found out to be mere English, were treated as impostors; for, as they
had not ft handsome wife, nor sister, to speak for them, not one single
election vote in their family, nor a shilling in their pockets to bribe
the turnpike {22}door-keeper, they could not succeed; besides, Chinese,
zig-zag, and gothic imitations, monopolized all premiums: and the envy
of prejudice, and the folly of fashion, made a party against them. They
were so weak in themselves, as to imagine the merits of their works
would recommend them to the world. Poor creatures! they knew nothing of
the world, to suppose so; for merit is the only thing in the world not
recommendable. To prevent starving, Architecture hired herself as a
brick-layer's {23}labourer to a Chinese temple-builder; Painting took on
as a colour-grinder to a paper-stainer; Poetry turned printer's devil;
Music sung ballads about the streets: and Astronomy {24}sold almanacks.
They rambled about in this manner for some time; at last, they picked
up poor Wit, who lay ill of some bruises he had received one masquerade
night.
As poor Wit was coming down the Haymarket, just as the masquerade
was breaking up, the noise of a pickpocket was announced, upon which
Buffoonery fell upon Wit, and mangled him most piteously. Invention
stood Wit's friend, and help-ed him to make his escape to those
Sciences. Now it happened that night, Lady Fashion had lost her
lap-dog, which Wit found, and brought to these his companions, for
whom Architecture built a little house; Painting made a portrait of it:
Poetry wrote a copy of verses upon it, which Music put a tune to; and
Astronomy calculated the dear creature's nativity; which so pleased Lady
Fashion, that she recommended them to the house of Ostentation, but left
Wit behind, because as wit was out of taste, Fashion would not have
any thing to say to it. However, some of her Ladyship's upper servants
invited Wit into the steward's room, and, according to the idea some
folks have of Wit, they begged he'd be comical. One brought him a poker
to bend over his arm; another desired he would eat a little fire for 'em
before dinner; the {25}butler requested a tune upon the musical glasses;
my lady's woman desired he would tell her fortune by the cards; and the
grooms said, "as how, if his honour was a wit, he could ride upon three
horses at once." But before Wit could answer to any of these questions,
the French governess belonging to the family came down stairs, and
ordered Wit to be turned out of doors, saying, "Vat want you vid Vit,
when you are studying à la Françoise? I'll vous assurez, I'll vous
assurez, if you will have us for your masters, you must have no vit at
all." [_The sciences taken off._]
Poor Wit being turned out of doors, wandered about friendless, for
it was never yet known that a man's wit ever gained him a friend. He
applied himself to the proprietors of the newspapers, but upon their
inquiring whether he understood politics, and being totally ignorant of
them, they would not employ him. He enquired after Friendship, but found
Friendship was drowned at the last general election; he went to find out
Hospitality, but Hospitality being invited to a turtle-feast, there was
no room for Wit; he asked after Charity, but it being found that Charity
was that day run over by a bishop's new set of coach-horses, he died
broken-hearted, being a distemper which, although {26}not catalogued in
the Materia Medica, is very epidemical among beautiful women, and men
of genius, who, having worn themselves out in making other people
happy, are at last neglected, and left to perish amid age and infirmity,
wondering how the world could be so ungrateful.
Here is the Head of a Connoisseur. [_Takes the head._]--Though born in
this kingdom, he had travelled long enough to fall in love with every
thing foreign, and despise every thing belonging to his own country,
except himself. He pretended to be a great judge of paintings, but only
admired those done a great way off, and a great while ago; he could not
bear anything done by any of his own countrymen; and one day being in
an auction-room where {27}there was a number of capital pictures, and,
among the rest, an inimitable piece of painting of fruits and flowers,
the Connoisseur would not give his opinion of the picture until he had
examined his catalogue, and finding it was done by an Englishman, he
pulled out his eye-glass [_Takes the eyeglass,_] "O, Sir," says he,
"these English fellows have no more idea of genius than a Dutch skipper
has of dancing a cotillion; the dog has spoiled a fine piece of canvas;
he's worse than a Harp-Alley sign-post dauber; there's no keeping,
no perspective, no fore-ground;--why there now, the fellow {28}has
attempted to paint a fly upon that rose-bud, why it's no more like a fly
than I am like an a--a--." But as the connoisseur approached his finger
to the picture, the fly flew away---His eyes are half closed; this is
called the wise man's wink, and shews he can see the world with half
an eye; he had so wonderful a penetration, so inimitable a forecast, he
always could see how every thing was to be--after the affair was over.
Then talking of the affairs of administration, he told his lordship,
that he could see how things were all along, they could not deceive him.
"I can see if other people can't; I can see, if the ministry take the
lead, they won't be behind hand." This man found out the only scheme
that ever could be invented for paying off the national debt; the scheme
that he found out, he discovered to the ministry as follows:
"Now, my lord duke, I have a scheme to pay off our nation's debt without
burthening the subject with a fresh tax; my scheme is as follows: I
would have all the Thames water bottled up, and sold for Spa water.
Who'll buy it, you'll say? Why the waterman's company must buy it, or
they never could work their boats any more: there's a {29}scheme to
pay off the nation's debt, without burthening the subject with a fresh
tax." [_ Takes the head off._]
Here is a companion for that connoisseur; this is one of your
worldly-wise men, wise in his own conceit; he laughed at all modes
of faith, and would have a reason given him for every thing. He
disinherited his only son because the lad could not give him a reason
why a black hen laid a white egg. He was a great materialist, and thus
he proved the infinity of matter. He told them, that all round things
were globular, all square things flat-sided. Now, Sir, if the bottom is
equal to the top, and the top equal to the bottom, and the {30}bottom
and the top are equal to the four sides, _ergo_, all matter is as broad
as it is long. But he had not in his head matter sufficient to prove
matter efficient; being thus deficient, he knew nothing of the matter.
[_ Takes off the head._]
We shall now exhibit a Freeholder's Head in a very particular state--in
a state of intoxication. [_Shews the head._]
These pieces of money are placed like doors over the senses, to open
and shut just as the distributor of the medicine pleases. And here is an
election picture [_shews it_]: all hands are catching at this; 'tis an
interpretation of that famous sentiment, "May we have in our arms those
we love in our hearts." Now the day of election is {31}madman's holiday,
'tis the golden day of liberty, which every voter, on that day, takes to
market, and is his own salesman: for man at that time being considered
as a mere machine, is acted upon as machines are, and, to make his
wheels move properly, he is properly greased in the fist. [_ Gives
off the picture. _] Every freeholder enjoys his portion of septennial
insanity: he'll eat and drink with every body without paying for it,
because he's bold and free; then he'll knock down every body who won't
say as he says, to prove his abhorrence of arbitrary power, and preserve
the liberty of Old England for ever, huzza! [_Gives off the head._]
The first contested election happened between the three goddesses upon
Mount Ida, whose names were, Juno, Minerva, and Venus, when Paris was
the returning officer, who decreed in favour of Venus, by presenting her
with the golden apple. [_ Takes up the money._] Juno, on her approaching
Paris, told him, that though it was beneath her dignity to converse with
a mortal, yet, if he would be her friend, she would make him a nabob.
Minerva told him how that learning was better than house and land, and
if he would be her friend, she would teach him _propria quæ maribus_.
But Venus, who thought it would be wasting time to make {32}use of
words, gave him such a look as put her in possession of the golden
apple. The queen of beauty, out of gratitude to Paris, who had so well
managed the election for her, made him a present of several slices of
that golden pippin, and, in commemoration of that event, such slices
have been made use of as presents at all other general elections; they
have a sympathy like that which happens to electrical wires, let a
hundred hold them in their hands, their sensations will be the same;
but they differ from electricity in one essential point, which is, that
though the touch be ever so great, it never shocks people.
It is a general remark, that novelty is the master-passion of the
English; nothing goes down without it, and nothing so gross, that it
will not make palatable; the art therefore of insuring success in this
town to every adventurer, is, to hit upon something new, as the phrase
is; no matter what it is, it will prove equally attracting, whether it
be a woman riding upon her head at Westminster-Bridge, or one without
any head at all, debating upon politics and religion at Westminster
Forum: but here, let not my fair countrywomen condemn me as an
unmannerly satirist; we respect the taste and understanding, as much as
we admire {33}the beauty and delicacy of the sex; but surely no woman of
sense would suppose we meant to offend her, if we said she was the most
improper person in the world to be made a captain of horse, or a member
of parliament.
This is the head [_takes the head_] of a Female Moderator, or President
of the Ladies' Debating Society: she can prove to a demonstration that
man is an usurper of dignities and preferments, and that her sex has a
just right to participation of both with him: she would have physicians
in petticoats, and lawyers with high heads and French curls; then she
would have _young_ women of spirit to command our fleets and armies, and
_old_ ones to govern the state:--she pathetically laments that {34}women
are considered as mere domestic animals, fit only for making puddings,
pickling cucumbers, or registering cures for the measles and chincough.
If this lady's wishes for reformation should ever be accomplished, we
may expect to hear that an admiral is in the histerics, that a general
has miscarried, and that a prime minister was brought to bed the moment
she opened the budget.
This is the head [_shews it_] of a Male Moderator, and president of
eloquence, at one of her schools in this metropolis. We have schools for
fencing, schools for dancing, and schools at which we learn every thing
but those things which we {35}ought to learn: but this is a school to
teach a man to be an orator; it can convert a cobler into a Demosthenes;
make him thunder over porter, and lighten over gin, and qualify him to
speak on either side of the question in the house of commons, who has
not so much as a single vote for a member of parliament.
Here political tobacconists smoke the measures of government in cut
and dry arguments; here opposition taylors prove the nation has been
cabbaged; here sadlers, turned statesmen, find a curb for the ministry;
here the minority veteran players argue that the scene ought to be
shifted; that the king's household wants a better manager; that there is
no necessity for a wardrobe-keeper; that his majesty's company are a set
of very bad actors; and he humbly moves that the king should discharge
his prompter. Some time ago, the president of this society had a great
constitutional point to decide; but not acquitting himself to the
satisfaction of the ladies, this spirited female seized the chair of
state, and with the crack of her fan opened the business of the evening;
declaring, as women had wisely abolished the vulgar custom of domestic
employment, she saw no reason why their knowledge should be confined to
the dress of a {36}head or the flounce of a petticoat; that government,
in peace and war, was as much their province as the other sex, nay more;
with regard to peace, very little was to be expected where women did not
rule with absolute sway; in respect to war, she insisted, at least, upon
an equivalent, and quoted the examples of many heroines, from the days
of Boadicea, who headed her own armies, down to Hannah Snell, who served
in the ranks; she appealed to her auditors if, notwithstanding their
plumes, that assembly had not as warlike an appearance as half the
officers of the guards, and doubted not but they'd prove to have full as
much courage, if ever put to their shifts. "In history and politics,"
continued she, "have not we a Macaulay? in books of entertainment, a
Griffiths? and in dramatic works an author that, in the last new comedy
of '_Which is the Man_,' disputes the bays with the genius of Drury?
Ladies, were it possible to find a man that would dispute the eloquence
of our tongues, I am sure he must readily yield to the superior
eloquence of our eyes." The gallery cried 'Bravo!' the assembly joined
in general plaudit; and Miss Susannah Cross-stich was chosen nem. con.
perpetual president.
{37}Before I put these heads on one side, I shall give a derivation of
their title. Moderator is derived from _mode_, the fashion, and _rate_,
a tax; and, in its compound sense, implies that Fashion advised these
two to lay their heads together, in order to take advantage of the
passion of the public for out-of-the-way opinions, and out-of-the-way
undertakings. This head seems to be of that order that should inculcate
the doctrine of charity, meekness, and benevolence: but, not finding his
labours in the vineyard sufficiently rewarded, according to the value he
sets upon himself, is now (like many of his functions) an apostate from
grace to faction; and, with a political pamphlet in his hand, instead of
a moral discourse, the pulpit is now become (as Hudibras expresses it)
a drum ecclesiastic, and volunteers are beat up for in that place, where
nothing should be thought of but proselytes to truth.
{38}Among the many heads that have played upon the passions of the
public, this is one [_takes the head'_] that did cut a capital figure in
that way. This is the head of Jonas, or the card-playing conjuring Jew.
He could make matadores with a snap of his fingers, command the four
aces with a whistle, and get odd tricks. But there is a great many
people in London, besides this man, famous for playing odd tricks, and
yet no conjurers neither. This man would have made a great figure in the
law, as he is so dexterous a conveyancer. But the law is a profession
that does not want any jugglers. Nor do we need any longer to load our
heads with the weight of learning, or pore {39} for years over arts
and sciences, when a few months' practice with these pasteboard
pages [_takes the cards_] can make any man's fortune, without his
understanding a single letter of the alphabet, provided he can but slip
the cards, snap his fingers, and utter the unintelligible jargon of
'presto, passa, largo, mento, cocolorum, yaw' like this Jonas. The
moment he comes into company, and takes up a pack of cards, he begins,
"I am no common slight-of hand man; the common slight-of-hand men, they
turn up the things up their sleeves, and make you believe their fingers
deceive your eyes. Now, sir, you shall draw one card, two cards, three
cards, four cards, five cards, half a dozen cards; you look at the card
at this side, you look at the card at that side, and I say blow the
blast; the blast is blown, the card is flown, yaw, yaw: and now, sir, I
will do it once more over again, to see whether my fingers can once more
deceive your eyes. I'll give any man ten thousand pounds if he do the
like. You look at the card of this side, you look at the card on that
side; when I say blow the blast, the blast is blown, the card is
shown, yaw, yaw." But this conjurer, at length discovering that most
practitioners on cards, now-a-days, know as many tricks as himself,
{40}and finding his slights of hand turned to little or no account, now
practises on notes of hand by discount, and is to be found every morning
at twelve in Duke's-place, up to his knuckles in dirt, and at two at
the Bank coffee-house, up to his elbows in money, where these locusts
of society, over a dish of coffee and the book of interest, supply the
temporary wants of necessitous men, and are sure to out-wit 'em, had
they even the cunning of a... Fox!
Here is the head of another Fashionable Foreigner [_shews the head_], a
very simple machine; for he goes upon one spring, self-interest. This
head may be compared to a _disoblezeance_; for there is but one seat in
it, and that is not the seat {41}of understanding: yet it is wonderful
how much more rapidly this will move in the high road of preferment than
one of your thinking, feeling, complex, English heads, in which honour,
integrity, and reason, make such a pother, that no step can be taken
without consulting them. This head, if I may be allowed to speak with
an Irish accent, was a long time boasting of his _feats_: but the last
_fète_ he attempted proved his _defeat_; for, in springing too high, he
got such a fall as would disgrace an Englishman for ever, and which none
but a foreigner's head could recover.
Is it not a pity that foreigners should be admitted familiarly into the
houses of the great, while Englishmen, of real merit, shall be thrust
from their doors with contempt? An instance of which happened in the
following picture--[_The picture brought, and he goes before it._]
{42}Here is an Opera Dancer, or Singer, maintained by us in all the
luxury of extravagance; and in the back ground a maimed soldier and
sailor, who were asking alms, and thrown down by the insolence of the
opera singer's chairman; yet the sailor lost his arm with the gallant
Captain Pierson, and the soldier left his leg on the plains of Minden.
Instead of paying a guinea to see a man stand on one leg--would it not
be better employed were it given to a man who had but one leg to stand
on? But, while these dear creatures condescend to come over here, to
sing to us for {43}the trifling sum of fifteen hundred or two thousand
guineas yearly, in return for such their condescension, we cannot do too
much for them, and that is the reason why we do so little for our own
people. This is the way we reward those who only bring folly into the
country, and the other is the way, and the only way, with which we
reward our deliverers. [_The picture taken off._] Among the number of
exotics, calculated for this evening's entertainment, the head of an
opera composer, or burletta projector, should have been exhibited,
could I have been lucky enough to hit upon any droll visage for that
exhibition: but, after many experiments, I was convinced that no head
for that representation could be so truly ridiculous as my own, if this
assembly do me the honour to accept it. [_Takes up the music-frame and
book._]
Suppose me, for once, a burletta projector, Who attempts a mock musical
scrap of a lecture. Suppose this thing a harpsichord or a spinnet; We
must suppose so, else there's nothing in it; And thus I begin, tho' a
stranger to graces. Those deficiencies must be supplied by grimaces, And
the want of wit made up by making of faces.
{44}[_Changes wigs and sits down._] Come, Carro, come, attend affetuoso,
English be dumb, your language is but so so;
Adagio is piano, allegro must be forte,
Go wash my neck and sleeves, because this shirt is dirty
Mon charmant, prenez guarda,
Mind what your signior begs,
Ven you wash, don't scrub so harda,
You may rub my shirt to rags.
Vile you make the water hotter--
Uno solo I compose.
Put in the pot the nice sheep's trotter,
And de little petty toes;
De petty toes are little feet,
De little feet not big,
Great feet belong to de grunting hog,
De petty toes to de little pig.
Come, daughter dear, carissima anima mea,
Go boil the kittle, make me some green tea a.
Ma bella dolce sogno,
Vid de tea, cream, and sugar bono,
And a little slice
Of bread and butter nice.
A bravo bread, and butter
Bravissimo-----------imo.
END OF PART II.